I like this...

Be who you are and say what you feel,
because those who mind don't matter
and those who matter don't mind.

Dr. Seuss
US author & illustrator (1904 - 1991)

picked off: The Quotations Page

Hi gang of 2...today is another day, and I got to sleep for 6 hours straight--no interruptions until 5:00 this morning! That was the longest sleep spell I've had in years. It sure makes a difference in my attitude!

So, today I have applied for 3 more positions, one part time and one full time, plus I've found a lot of openings in the federal government sector for which I'm qualified...in Homeland Security. Maybe it will be a job where I get to wear a uniform and have a sniffing dog with me and I get to look real mean and tough.

A Short Summary of the last Few Months

So, with good intentions I last wrote that I hoped I could write more often. Here it is, late April, and I haven’t even sent Holiday letters I thought I would write back at Christmas, let alone write something my neglected, old, underwhelmingly-designed blog.
Hoping to not bore too much, by writing all the gory details, here is a synopsis of our lives since the first of this year.

January—
Looking up! While infected with some sinus, coughy, sneezy, awful illness of some kind, I got a job!! When we decided to refinance our home mortgage, I got into a conversation with our loan officer who basically offered me a job at his mortgage company. I started on the 15th of January and really enjoyed my re-entry to the work world. The mortgage industry is now filled with all kinds of regulations and policies designed to keep those bad mortgages from crashing our economy again, and it was a lot to learn. But I was happy—we were a two income family again and had good child care for before/after school care, and I could begin making plans to get my shower repaired!

February—
Rehearsals for Little Women continue in earnest, preparing for our March performances. Scott gets an offer from Boeing to travel to Warner-Robbins Georgia to work at the Air Force Base on their software for the C-17, and leaves for his first week away from us. Meanwhile, I barely managed the girls’ schedules, working full time, still being sick, shopping for medical insurance, blah blah blah, but we made it through the week and we were very happy to see Scott come home that Friday night! Lots of other “stuff” happened that month, but I’d rather go on to March.

March—
Performance time for Little Women!! Two weeks of stress, late night rehearsals, full time work, exhaustion, still ill, but oddly, energizing. I loved performing! The cast was great, fun, hilarious and really good at ad-lib. Plus, at the end of the month, my manager told me that my contract was extended for 4 months! It’s a good life. Scott spends two more weeks in Georgia, we girls dealt with it a little better than that first week, and the night he returned home, I spent a good part of my paycheck on dinner at a terrific restaurant near Los Angeles International Airport called the Proud Bird. Everyone was entertained. We got a window seat, and watched planes coming in for landing, plus got to see the stationary display of old war birds. All four of us loved it, and the 5 cats who moved from plane to plane playing in the grass and catching bugs. The food and service were fabulous!
Emily gets a goal in soccer; Sarah takes the entrance exam for the nearby academy that is rated the #2 school in the nation for academics. It’s a 7th through 12th grade school, is only a few blocks from our house, and is a public school. She is excited; she feels really good about how she did on the exam.

April--
So, after these two weeks in Georgia, Scott now looks forward to two more work days at Boeing, when he says he’s 85% sure he’ll get let go. Fortunately for him, DreamWorks SKG Animation called him while he was in Georgia, held a phone interview with him and hired him to start the week after he returned home from Georgia. Yippee!! Animation means he gets to return to his dream of working in computer animation again! Salary? ½ of what he makes at Boeing. But I’m working, we’re getting a decent Income Tax refund, and he’ll get benefits!! Paid days off soon, instant health insurance, free breakfasts and lunches at the DreamWorks cafeteria. Yippee again! Ok, so it will mean 11.5 hours every day away from us, no assistant coaching for Emily’s soccer team, getting home after 7:00 pm every night of the week, very little weekly time with the family. But Yippee, he’s happy again! So, he starts work at DreamWorks the week of April 6th, driving 40 miles each way to work every day. But he love sit and that counts for a lot. We’ll make it financially after some adjustments to our budget. With my job, we’ll make it. The girls are ecstatic; they’ll get to go with Daddy to work on Take your Kids to Work day, April 23rd. They’ll have “cool” rights with their dad working in the movie industry. He’ll be working on Shrek 4 (so far titled, “Shrek Goes Fourth”), and they’ll probably get to see it before all their school buddies.

The weekend of my birthday (April 13th) was great. Scott and I got a beautiful date night that weekend. Sunday was very pleasant and Monday on my actual birthday, the folks at my job sang to me and brought me a beautiful delicious cake.

April 14th, we get a letter in the mail from Oxford Academy, telling us that Sarah did not make it into the school. She wasn’t one of the 200 top scorers to gain acceptance to this prestigious school. I think I was more disappointed than she was.

Enter Wednesday April 15th. Tax Day! In the afternoon, my manager wanted to speak with me privately. I felt as if I was going to the Principal’s office for some kind of discipline. She told me she’d have to lay me off as of right then. I couldn’t even finish out the day. I was to pack my things and go, but I’d be paid for that day. Part time working wasn’t even an option. The “new sheriff in town” as she called the company that recently purchased our company, had decided that they were going to centralize all mortgage loan processing, and as I was a contract worker, I was to be let go first. In a weird twist of logic, and on one hand, I’d never been #1 before, and now I am! (um, yippee). On the other hand, where we had thought we’d be at least at 75% of Scott’s Boeing salary, now we’d be less than half of his salary. My pay would no longer make up for any part of his lost salary by going to DreamWorks from Boeing. It’s a good thing we did refinance; at least Scott’s salary will now cover the mortgage. Not anything more, but at least we’ll make our house payment.

I’m 51 years old plus a week. I’ve been out of the workforce, except for this past three months, for over 12 years. In this economy I’m going to find another job? Yes. I have to do just that. It’s going to be hard. So, if you hear of any administrative job openings, pass them my way…

Other than that, everything’s just peachy! I’ve stayed up tonight way too late to write this, and I’m not feeling too great (the cough that started in January has not gone away yet, plus I’m having some trouble with my foot and left leg), so I’d better try to get some sleep. After all, tomorrow is another day, and I need to be fresh to face it!

My love to all.

A New Twist

Well Howdy there!!

Asking me how I am is taking a chance on having your ear bent, your shoulder dampened and your time stolen!

There have been a few twists in the Mankey family life just in the last 48 hrs!

I have three minutes to tell you all about it so get your tea/coffee/wine and I'll type as fast as I can (forgive typos, I may not correct them)

First, three weeks ago we got a puppy. She's a darling little Malti-poo (Maltese and poodle) with a little teddy bear face. She's black with white on her nose, under her eyes, on her ruff and on the tips of her toes.  She's feisty, too. Barks at Hamlet all the time. Wants to play with him. He just growls at her, teaching her some boundaries. She's a pain in the butt tho....I think she's really a "shitty-poo"  She can't seem to get that concept of pooping OUTSIDE...why just this morning she left a little present on my pile of clothes that need to go to the dry cleaners!  Bless her heart!

I've been sick with the flu and a sinus infection since the first of the year. I'm on my 2nd round of meds and I think it's getting worse instead of better. In the third week of being sick, I got a job! Yippee! part time, no bennies, but great pay--9:am to 1:pm. at a mortgage company only 10 minutes from home.  I really am enjoying it and the people are great.  Of course I was ill, so thick headed and coughing up a lung every 10 minutes or so I'm sure wasn't appealing to my coworkers. However, they are grooming me to do funding while the woman training me is on mat leave from June to whenever. I'll get a raise then, too.

In addition to learning the mortgage company, I got a part in a community theater play, Little Women. I'm Marmee (the mom).  Learning lines is not the easiest thing to do when trying to simultaneously learn mortgage loan laws and documentation!!

Scott then gets laid off last Tuesday.  That was his last day at Bo(r)ing...at least it was until I told my mgr that I could work full time, since he was going to be a house husband.  She jumped at that chance....now I'm full time and guess what? Scott gets a job---a great opportunity, somewhere in BF Georgia !!!!  He'll be gone for anywhere from one month to 6 months.  He's going to leave as early as next week, maybe.  So I now have the opportunity of finding child care before and after school.

That's not all, oh no, boys and girls, that is not all...but I need to get the girls to school and my butt to work.

Did you ask me how I am? Are you sorry yet?

Love you and miss you,

Today I'd be leaving on my cruise with the dec moms!!!  8^(

I'll write again, I hope, soon,

Forgot another good news/bad news item

There's one more thing that I forgot to mention. We have a new addition to our family! I little fluffy black 10 week old Malti-Poo puppy! We have some pictures, but they are still on the camera card…not uploaded to the pc yet. However, to describe her, she is about 16" long, maybe 8-10" high floor to back. She's got curly black fur all over, except for a white ruff, white around her nose, and her toes, with a little bit of white on the very tip of her tail.

That's the good news part. The not so good news part is that we've now had her two weeks and have had some trouble potty training her. Oh she goes potty when we take her outside, but she comes inside and goes potty there too. Not so good for the new-ish carpet. She's feisty; she barks at Hamlet, tries to bite his tail, and chases him everywhere.

She's little Luna Tic Mankey, our puppy. She's Sarah's puppy, and Sarah is learning a little about motherhood. She begged her little sister to let Luna sleep with her tonight since the puppy has been waking Sarah twice each night crying, and peeing wherever she feels like it. So, tonight, "grandma" (me) has the little dickens in her crate, next to me on the sofa.

She's in her crate because while she slept next to me on the sofa, she suddenly just stood up, walked to the other side of the sofa and commenced to piddle. I shouted "No!!" Alas, it was too late. So out she went for a little while, then into her crate. That's where she is sleeping right now as I type. I wonder if it's safe to go to sleep yet.

Good News Bad News

It's kind of a good news bad news week. 3 weeks ago, I started a job at National City Mortgage, the company that recently re-financed our home.  During the conversation, he mentioned how slammed his office is with all the refi's happening due to the lowered interest rates, and I asked if he needed help.  He asked for my resume, gave me their employment agency's data, and within 10 days I was hired. I just finished my 3rd week and it's been a much more positive experience than working for the university was. They're even paying me not only more than the university, they are paying me about 20% more/hr than I requested.  I'm learning how to fund loans in order to fill in for the woman training me who is pregnant, and due in June.  They're giving me plenty of time to learn all those tiny little details.

Not so great news is that it's mostly part time as of yet.

Pretty good news is that the girls and I are not on COBRA anymore, and are paying only $300/mo for Aetna insurance.  Not the best insurance, but definitely cheaper than COBRA. Unfortunately Scott is still on COBRA until he can drop some weight and get off his blood pressure med. However, we have gone from a total of $1450 to $700/month for health care premiums. That plus what we are saving with the refi monthly is a nice little bit of monetary savings each month.

Scary news is that Scott is pretty sure that his last day at Boeing is this coming Tuesday, 2/3.  Scott seems to think it's a temporary "furlough," that a new project will come up soon, and he'll be called back in March. I'm shaking in my boots wondering what we'll do if they don't call him back.

Good news about Sarah though; she has qualified to take a test for an academic honors school. It's Oxford, and it's 7th through 12th grades. It's been ranked by US News & World Report as the second best school in the nation.  We've learned that it's not only good academically, it has some great extracurricular clubs, plus championship intramural sports activities.  She takes the test in March.

Great news about Emily, Sarah and me: we all got parts in a production of Little Women (same company as Alice last fall), I'm Marmee (the mom)!  I finally get to say I'm an actress! (ok, sort of.)

Scott’s Birthday

So. My poor husband.  Yesterday we had plans to go to dinner together. Sarah had an overnight b'day party to attend, and we thought we had plans for Emily, but that didn't work out, so the three of us planned to have dinner. 

Poor Scott got home from work to find two extra girls here; their moms had asked if their girls could walk home with my girls and stay here till the moms got here to take the girls home.  One seemed like a little scare of an emergency, so I said yes, and the other was only for a half hour, so I said yes to that too. (The emergency mom said that the ex husband had threatened to wait at the bus stop and take her daughter "away."  Since he doesn't know me very well and at least doesn't know where I live, it figured my home would be a safe place for her to wait for her mom to get off work.)

Then Emily tells me she is very sad because she doesn't get to go with the big girls and see Marley and Me.  Has anyone seen this movie? 

I already have a bronchial thing that everyone else has had.  Plus, since everyone else has had it and is done with it, they think I should be healthy by now, too.  But I'm not. (just a little side note)

We planned to leave for dinner at 4:30 so that it would be early enough to beat crowds and hopefully get Em into the theater on time to see the movie with her sister and birthday girl.  So when Emergency Mom asked if I could just take her daughter to the party, that meant we'd be home until at least 5:30, the earliest I felt ok to drop the darlin's off at the party. I discuss it with Scott, he seems already angry about something, and says "fine."

So we get the girls to the party, and the three of us leave (Scott, Emily and myself).  He now wants to go to a different place thinking that going to where we planned would at this time take too long to get Emily to the movie. Realizing that Scott's birthday is more important, I tell Emily she and I can go see the movie some other time.  That brings the roof of the car down in tears.  She wails, "I want to go to Chili's!!!!"  Scott, in his always present let's please Emily attitude, says, Let's go to Chili's. 

I already mentioned that I'm not well, and Chili's is not what my doctor would have ordered. At all.  But, it's Scott's birthday, and I say we ought to go where YOU want to go; he repeats Let's go to Chili's.

So we go to Chili's.  It seems as if the whole city is at Chili's, which convinces me we should have stuck with our original plans to go where we wanted to in the first place. The wait was long, the service took awhile--it just appeared that the entire restaurant staff came unprepared for the Friday night crowd that showed up at their doorstep.

It was so not a Happy birthday celebration for Scott. He didn't want dessert...said something about the great spice cake waiting for him at home, which didn't exist.  We ate our dinner...I could only choke down a little of mine; we dropped him off at home; I took Em to see Marley and Me with the big girls.  (I welcome a discussion of the movie at another time). Scott didn't get a card from me, or his daughters, didn't get a cake, and was asleep when Emily and I returned home. Sad. 

I awaken this morning feeling worse for some reason. After getting up, I realize I'm getting a bladder infection.  Always on a weekend, when the doctor isn't available, and the doc on call can't be disturbed for a prescription call.  I know what I have, I know what I need, just let me talk to the doc and get it. No, now I have to wait until Monday.  I go into the family room and smell something wonderful. I said so, and Scott said "thank you."  I look into the oven, baking something, and see spice cakes baking.  He had made his own birthday cake.  I guess he really wanted it.

So now, I feel guilty for not baking him a cake, not preparing for his birthday better than I did, not preparing Sarah for her b'day party, not making better plans for Emily so that Scott and I could have a date, not having the house better prepared and more peaceful when he got home, allowing the girls to come over after school, everything. 

I did find him a card and put it somewhere he'll find it when I'm not around.  I did ice the cake--though when I started making it, he had already gone and bought the canned frosting. So I used that.

Also, I feel guilty that I don't really feel that guilty, being sick, tired, and a few other issues.

To Update – A Little

I caught everyone's respiratory yuck thing last weekend--thank you Emily and Scott--was ok for most of the week, then Santa Ana winds came up and my sinuses had to yell....then yesterday, a precious little baby bladder infection joined the party.  Fever of 102.4 last night, It was the week of getting back to normal, going to the gym for my swim classes, throwing out 30 things a day, eating right--more veggies, less starch, less bad protein.  

The eating went well at least till yesterday.  I haven't been to a Weight Watchers' meeting for a couple of months now. I wanted to go yesterday; had it all planned out to go, then felt like crap and didn't even get out of bed until 11:am.

Interestingly enough, about a month ago, we heard from our mortgage loan guy who said interest rates had decreased enough to make a difference in our mortgage payments.  We started the paperwork rolling, and in the course of the conversation, I learned they need office help.  He sounded interested in having me join them and gave me the contact information for the agent they use. 

So, I dutifully sent out an email with my resume.  Got an email from him, a phone call from the agent and an email from the corporate office of the agent, all on the same morning.  Thursday I took their tests and completed their paperwork. Friday I met with the loan guy, and his operations director, plus the funding officer...and they want me to start tomorrow (Monday).  They were nearly apologetic when they told me it was only part time, 9:-1:00, but that's perfect for me. It's close to home, I'll be home when the girls are home, and should still have time to take care of a few project at home during daylight hours.

I just hope that tomorrow my body will cooperate with the needs of the mortage company and I'll be able to perform well enough for them to keep me.  My hair hurts! 

To catch you up with the health insurance saga...Costco/Pacificare turned us down because evidentally Scott has some kind of heart thing that neither of us knew about, plus a buldging disk in my back and chronic back pain that I haven't heard about either.

I have arthritis in my neck, and a disk is degenerating, but that's not a bulge, nor is it in my back.  Do you think I have a way of appealing? Is it worth it?

We're still waiting for an underwriter's decision on getting Aetna. I may go without insurance and just cover the girls & Scott.  But when I"m sick, like today, I want to go to my doctor with my no-copay, get my $15 copay prescription and get better. I guess I'll have to learn to live more like my old good friend Dianne...get sick, work through it and get somewhat better.  Or, maybe someone one day will go up to Scott, say, "we changed your badge, now you are a bonafide Boeing employee" an we'll get their fabulous insurance. Ha.

At least I'll have a little income for awhile, and the mortage payment will be going down, so that will be close to a $1200 increase in income per month if I look at it correctly.  Let's hope we spend it wisely.  It means maybe in a few months we'll get our shower fixed!  Or maybe the hole in the side of the house.  Or maybe a new front door--the one we have has a hole in it on the inside of the house...and is really no protection from the outside elements, whether hot or cold. Or ....the joys of home ownership, eh? 

Is it 2009 Already???

Here we are! A new year and already I'm behind in my blogging. Oh well. It's been a year.

9 days left to a new president.

New resolves already broken? 1 so far.

Last year's resolves kept? 4 I think…I did my best to write notes to people when I thought of them and was able; ok, I can't remember the others. According to my blog from last year I didn't make any. Well I didn't write about any that I made, so omission of said resolves equals non-existence, doesn't it?

My "What I did last summer" post never got finished…my brilliant political perspectives never got posted…well, except for that one in March. I am glad Obama got elected; I hope his hope helps the country have hope and increase our overall hope to get out of our perceived hope-less situation.

When I'm about to go to sleep at night, my mind comes up with all kinds of great and inspiring things to write. When I'm awake and have time, my mind closes like a steel trap and releases nothing for me to write. So I blather on about something or another hoping that my mind will eventually squeeze out something worth reading. Right now, my mind has closed, even though just last night I had three different posts in my head to publish.

So for now, a wish for a Happy New Year, a hope for a good year for all of us throughout 2009, good health and accessible health insurance for all.

More to come sometime, I'm sure.